21Jan13

Cameron leading Britain into minefield on EU

Prime Minister David Cameron is leading Britain into a minefield in seeking to
renegotiate its terms of membership of the European Union. His gamble could easily
end in a bust.

Cameron postponed a landmark speech on Europe, due to have been delivered in
Amsterdam last Friday, because of a hostage crisis in Algeria, but he had already
disclosed the thrust of his plan to try to change London's relationship with the EU.

Extracts from the undelivered speech released by his office show he planned to say
Britain would "drift towards the exit" unless the EU reformed itself. That sounded
reminiscent of a 1930s British newspaper headline: "Fog in the Channel, the
continent cut off".

The excerpts did not mention a referendum, which Cameron has indicated he would
hold later in the decade after negotiating a "new settlement" with Europe.

His strategy is bound to open a prolonged period of uncertainty in which events
could put his preferred option -- a looser version of full British membership -- out of
reach.

First, all Britain's 26 partners must be willing to negotiate on Cameron's agenda,
which despite some expressions of goodwill is by no means a given. Euro zone
states may prefer to press ahead with closer integration without reopening the EU
treaties, or refuse to unravel past agreements.

Second, they would have to be confident in the prime minister's ability to win a
national vote and make an agreement stick over the long term to justify significant
concessions. But many EU officials are not convinced Cameron's Conservatives will
win a 2015 general election. There is no incentive to give him more than polite
sympathy until then.

Third, EU partners would have to be able to win the consent of their own voters or
parliaments for any special deal with Britain that could involve watering down
European social and employment rights and giving London a lock on EU financial
services legislation.

Many are worried that an a-la-carte Europe would lead other countries to demand
opt-outs.

Finally, the whole process must proceed free from the kind of unpredictable clashes,
political accidents or media scares that have dogged London's ties with the EU for
decades.

No rational gambler would bet on all those stars staying aligned. Despite Cameron's
declared intention of keeping Britain in Europe, you don't have to be an astrologer to
see how this could end in divorce.

Britain has renegotiated its terms twice since it joined the European Economic
Community in 1973, yet it remains a reluctant, semi-detached and often obstructive
member.

Prime Minister Harold Wilson won some cosmetic trade concessions that were
endorsed in a 1975 referendum on staying in. Margaret Thatcher secured a large,
permanent annual rebate on London's EU budget contribution in 1984, which
remains a source of resentment for many partners to this day.

Despite obtaining opt-outs from Europe's single currency and the Schengen zone of
passport-free travel, the British public and Conservative politicians have turned ever
more hostile to the EU, depicted in much of the British media as a malevolent,
meddling foreign bureaucracy.

With the exception of a couple of short-lived honeymoons during the construction of
the European single market in the mid-1980s and the launch of a European security
and defense policy in the late 1990s, relations have always been fraught.

It is hard to recall that 15 years ago, Prime Minister Tony Blair was publicly
proclaiming his intention to lead Britain into the euro as soon as economic
conditions were right.

For most of the time, successive British governments have fought tooth-and-nail to
thwart or slow moves towards "ever closer union", the goal enshrined in EU treaties
since 1957.

No wonder that despite their leaders' public pledges of support for keeping Britain
in, many European officials and diplomats privately wonder if the EU would not be
more united and freer to advance if the British could be managed out.

"There's a feeling that it might be best to use the next inter-governmental
conference (on EU treaty reform) to organize the UK's exit," a French official said,
speaking anonymously because he was expressing a personal view.

Former European Commission President Jacques Delors, who clashed frequently
with Thatcher, has suggested publicly Britain should leave the Union and be offered
"a different form of partnership" based on the European Economic Area.

Officially, no EU government takes that line. But imagine some of the events that
could intervene to change the game.

What if the UK Independence Party, which advocates complete withdrawal, were to
win next year's European Parliament elections in Britain or outpoll Cameron's
Conservatives despite his renegotiation and referendum pledge?

That could force the prime minister to ratchet up demands to repatriate powers from
Brussels to lure back anti-EU protest voters in the 2015 general election. It could
also undermine EU partners' belief that any concessions would be sufficient to
secure a "yes" vote in Britain.

If, confounding opinion polls, Scotland votes to leave the United Kingdom in a
referendum next year, where would that leave the more Eurosceptical English?

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond has said Scotland would want to stay in the EU,
but Brussels lawyers say a seceding Edinburgh would likely have to apply from
scratch, negotiate membership terms and win unanimous acceptance to join.

Other factors could intervene to complicate negotiations.

A dispute over mad cow disease in Britain in 1996 caused a crisis between London
and its partners, with the British boycotting EU business for months in anger at a
ban on beef exports to the continent.

Now, Britain may clash with Brussels over tighter financial regulation sought by the
euro zone countries.

Another serious risk is that public expectations of change in Britain's EU
membership terms grow unrealistically high and the deal that Cameron is able to
negotiate is dismissed by Eurosceptical politicians and media as a sham or a joke.

Even if none of these landmines is detonated, there remains the strong possibility
that voters given the first choice in a generation to vote "no" to the European Union
choose to do so.

Experience with referendums in France, the Netherlands and Ireland shows voters
may cast a protest vote against an unpopular government, or simply express a
general dislike of Europe, regardless of the question they are asked.

[Source: By Paul Taylor, Reuters, London, 21Jan13]

This document has been published on 31Jan13 by the Equipo Nizkor and Derechos Human Rights. In accordance with
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